In Back To The Future Part II, Marty McFly travels to the year 2015 and enters a restaurant called Cafe 80s. He’s greeted by two television versions of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev upselling menu items. Another TV shows Michael Jackson going through the menu with a customer. A bottle of “Pepsi Perfect” rises up from a clear plastic tube within the counter.
While the restaurants of 2018 haven’t quite manifested this 1989 prediction, we may not be that far off. (more…)
Photo by Life With Lorenzo
I have documented the continuous change in Chinese food in America, particularly since the 1960s when changes to American immigration laws triggered the diversification of Chinese food in America, a trend that is accelerating now. As such, a corresponding evolution in American Chinese restaurant names reflects the changing times. A restaurant named Golden Dragon or China Inn would have been the norm decades ago, but less generic names like Sea Harbour or Sichuan Impression are better suited for today’s restaurant scene.
I have noticed a thoroughly puzzling proliferation of one restaurant name: Fuleen. To add to the mystery, all of the Fuleen restaurants that have sprung up are located east of the Mississippi River. What forces could possibly be at work here? (more…)
I know this is going to sound egotistical, but I just can’t help myself: I love being right!
At the end of every year in just about every major consumer goods industry, experts offer predictions of the trends you can expect to see in the following year. So in my last blog of 2017, I wrote about five trends, one of which was value menus: (more…)
Photo: Burger King
It’s the end of 2017, when all the “experts” in the fast food industry get to talk about the trends they expect for the following year. Basically, it’s the time of year we all get to pretend that we’re smarter than we really are.
Having said that, I do have some thoughts on what the future will hold. So here’s my list of the top fast food trends for 2018: (more…)
Black truffle shumai at Longo Seafood. Photo by David R. Chan
A brief history of L.A.’s Chinese food scene
Los Angeles came to the Chinese food forefront in the 1990s, surpassing San Francisco and New York. As the 21st century progressed, Los Angeles continued to pull further ahead of the competition. Most recently, L.A.’s advantage has been reinforced by numerous Mainland China-based restaurant chains deliberately locating their first US branches in Los Angeles, rather than San Francisco or New York. (more…)
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